(RTTNews) - The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) of the U.N. General Assembly has called on the Organization to do more to avoid "egregious examples of waste" in such areas as the daily subsistence allowance to United Nations staff traveling on official business and the use of frequent flyer miles.
After scrutiny, the Representatives of the Committee agreed with the main thrust of the 20 proposals issued by Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon in his report on more effective utilization of resources for official United Nations air travel, which was introduced by Warren Sach, Officer-in-Charge of the Department of Management.
Reacting to both the proposals and the existing practices that they were intended to improve, delegations noted that some current policies and practices in the area of air travel were wasteful and even "disturbing," and welcomed proposed changes.
The report of the Secretary-General recommends spending the U.N.'s over $73 million airfare budget more efficiently. It also calls for scrapping the current policy of paying daily subsistence allowance to staff members traveling on official business even while they were in flight.
Instead, he proposed paying daily subsistence allowance beginning at the arrival of an official at his or her destination and ending the last night spent at that location. He also recommends, among other things, that frequent flyer miles gained as a result of official business not be used for personal travel, and that United Nations officials be encouraged to use such miles on official business travel. The report concluded on the basis of a study that creating a formal program for the management of frequent flyer miles for official travel was not cost-effective....
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